


the last time

by x (ordinary)



Series: excerpts fit for a wasteland [non-canon] [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Depersonalization, Drug Abuse, Dysfunctional Relationships, Eating Disorders, F/M, Recreational Drug Use, Vomiting, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:23:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ordinary/pseuds/x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"And I looked you in the eye: 'You know, this is the last time I am gonna put you back together.'" - Love Songs Drug Songs - X Ambassador</p><p>Or: Everyone has a breaking point.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last time

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: something based around "love songs drug songs" by x ambassadors

He found her hunched over the last super mutant, puking up her guts. Felicia didn't acknowledge him at all, barely holding herself up with shaking arms losing their strength after the last of the Buffout wore off, and Hancock knew as well as she did that the addiction was going to take hold, again.

There was a bottle of Addictol in both his bar and hers at all times, just in case. Nothing else was more effective for a reliable chem habit than the ability to do them without consequence, without the hard choice to make, without the withdrawal symptoms. Felicia was too precise for such messy things. She packed an exact number of chems for every day she was out, for both business and pleasure. She accommodated in her budget for Problems that might crop up, and stored a healthy stash in Hancock's own bag in case of Worse Problems.

And it was fine, most of the time.

They chased highs like others chased storms, reaching into the night sky for falling stars that they'd never quite wrap their fingers around. Hancock looked at her and saw love and ferocity incarnate, willing to do anything for him except treat her body like anything but a weapon. There were no parts he could use, though, to repair the worn out pieces of her, and yet Felicia pushed herself again and again, and at her worst she would still say  _yes_ to the people who needed her. People who she hated. People who she would have gladly killed, had he given her the permission, and sometimes it lurked in her exhausted, haunted eyes.

Felicia did these things for him, whether or not he asked for them. She operated an internal code that he hadn't yet entirely cracked, her principles dogmatic and absolute, unquestionable. Doing Good was the default setting turned up to one hundred, at whatever cost, no matter how they argued with curled lips and outbursts borne out of concern and smothered with chems. 

Sometimes, he realized, Felicia really was just as capable at doling out a hurt to herself as she was her enemies. It wasn't something she was in control of, something she could stop. As surely as she stabbed herself she stabbed him too, but Felicia continued on her blissful downward spiral with an apology on her lips and remorse on her face, even as she raised the knife and readied to slide it between her ribs.

Hancock's concern swelled and she smiled at him, wan, too human to be truthful, and left him in Hangman's Alley in the middle of the night, vanishing with not even Dogmeat at her side, not to be seen for days at  _any_ settlement or city, and he'd had enough. 

And now, after trailing after her in the dark, he'd found her. 

Under a still-working streetlight, Hancock looked at her sorry state one more time, thinking again, again, again:  _I love you but I'm tired. I love how you ride but it goes too far. I love you, but._  And yet, he knelt by Felicia's side and rubbed her back with one warm hand, fingers spanning across her back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. They were more prominent than ever. 

She wiped off her mouth with the back of her hand, and didn't bother to raise her head to look at him. A dog expecting a scolding after bad behavior. Wound tight, Felicia just heaved again, dry this time, and wondered if there was even more that could evacuate from her insides, if she might yawn her mouth wide enough to lose her lungs and heart, her liver and her bones, wiggling out of her like slippery eels.

Not for the first time, from outside her body Felicia noted how hollow she was, a nest of dead brambles too far gone to be a home to anything. Instead of screaming, she sucked in a harsh breath and sat up, looking at Hancock anything but helpless. _Face the music. Read the notes, rend them until they're nothing but a jumble and incomprehensible. Turn love into a battleground: it's the only thing you're good at._

Almost dispassionately, Hancock tarted the count. New track marks along the lines of her veins, the torn cloth from the injections to her thigh done on the run. He checked her bag for the number of boxes and bottles left, tallying the difference. The numbers kept going up and up and up, and Hancock sucked in a deep breath through the remains of h Felicia turned to him with dead eyes, defiant, but the trembling had not abated and the hollows of her cheeks were gaunter than ever.  _I love you_ , he thought,  _but I can't watch you do this._

(When he'd said the rest was details and drug paraphernalia, he hadn't meant it like this.)

Hancock took her by the arm and pulled her into a fireman's carry, taking Felicia's strung out body back to camp on his shoulders, heavy from more than her weight. 

"Stop," she murmured, struggling and it was no small feat to keep her in place, but he persisted.

"You don't meat that," he rasped, "and even if you did, the answer's no."

How could it be anything but? When stop meant stop caring, stop acting, stop doing the things that could make her better because she surely wasn't going to. Did she think he enjoyed this, the hypocritical worrying? 

Felicia struggled enough to slip out of his grasp, toppling to the asphalt, and the wild animal look was back, and Hancock was reminded how close to feral she was at all times, clinging to something human that slipped further and further away witch each passing day. "I _do_ mean it. Don't _you_ do this to me, Hancock."

"Do what?" he snapped, " _Care_? Meant it, when I said think about it long term, and now you're--" Cutting it short.

"Control me!" she screeched, warbled pitifully, and Felicia ducked her head and put her hands over her ears, rocking. "Just needed another Psycho," Felicia muttered, "would've been fine till I got back. Didn't  _need you._ " It came out a hiss, venom and toxin deployed with malice, her first and only defense mechanism. Hit, and hit, and never stop hitting. 

Hancock refused to flinch. Bowing to it meant giving her the win she wanted, meant allowing her the isolation she so dearly wanted, and it wasn't the time or place. Later, maybe. Later, he'd take her hands into his own and explain why she had to change and why he'd had to go if she didn't. Later, she would twist her bruised fingers in his and ask how to change, and it wouldn't be his place to explain it. He'd tried, and he'd failed. How he felt himself spiraling with her, beyond coping into destruction, and her heart would not be broken. Her heart would be furious. 

But, for now, Hancock ducked down and snatched the wrist without a Pipboy, yanking Felicia up by it, and she moved like a puppet with cut strings. "For the love of-- Felicia, I can feel your bones grinding. That's not the only place. You need to _eat_ is what you need." 

By the scruff, he dragged her back to Hangman's Alley, sat her down and nearly force fed her soup. Felicia accepted it, perfunctory, and still did not look at all like herself.

"I can't quit," Felicia said, huffing Addictol with a satisfied sigh. 

"I know," Hancock said, and grabbed for the Jet on his own. She reached out with thin fingers, expectant, and he hesitated. "We gotta talk, tomorrow," he muttered, and maybe  _later_ wasn't so far away at all.

She looked at him, hawkish, and her gaze gave nothing away, except the frantic and exhausted anxiety that lived in her skull every day. "Okay."

He handed her the Jet. "You look like you need it." 

Never had the words rang so hollow.

**Author's Note:**

> non-canon bad ending
> 
> catch me at [my tumblr](http://lurks-beneath.me) :D


End file.
